Gayle Nobel is an accomplished author, inspirational speaker and a highly-respected life coach. But at the heart of her story, she is the mother of a son with autism. She bares her heart to her loyal following and has found a great deal of success in honestly sharing the triumphs and tribulations of motherhood.

We had the opportunity to talk with Nobel about her latest book, “Space of Love,” where she challenges the way in which humans analyze experience and offers insight into how we can use our thoughts to help transform our lives.

 

AFM: Tell me a little bit about your story and how you’ve managed motherhood while raising a son with autism.

Gayle Nobel: Looking back at life, it’s very much a ‘one step at a time’ deal. Just seeing that is such a big deal because it’s hard and challenging at times. Raising kids is that way anyway. But, when you have a child that doesn’t learn in the normal ways and doesn’t respond in the normal ways, it just really challenges you to step outside of your comfort zone and to figure things out. There are a lot of questions that you’re unsure about. And there were things that if I had to go back, I probably wouldn’t do them or I would do them differently. But I think we just figured it out, one step at a time. It was important for us [Nobel and her husband] to make time as a couple, too. There was a lot of juggling, but fortunately I married a really wonderful person. So, my husband was always available. We also made time for our other kids, our two daughters who we had after Kyle. We were aware that we needed to make time for them too. We also were fortunate in the sense that we had a lot of help. I never felt like I had to do it all myself. I focused on the fact that I was just doing the best that I could. I think that my attitude made a difference and I didn’t want to take the ‘victim stance.’ I did everything that I could within reason.

 

AFM: Do you think that having your son first changed the way that you raised your two daughters? Or were there any specific characteristics that you had picked up while raising him that translated into how you parented your other children?

GN: Definitely! I think I actually just appreciated them tremendously. I just thought it was amazing how they developed. They just start talking, and he’s never talked. We nurtured them, we read to them and we provided them with experiences, but they were on this beautiful auto-pilot that kids are on, that I don’t think people appreciate unless they’ve had somebody who hasn’t been on that auto-pilot. I also think that being Kyle’s mom just has made me a better human. So, I think there was probably just a better human coming to them as a mother.

 

AFM: There’s a quote at the beginning of your “Resistance” chapter that really struck me. The quote reads: “Autism is often symbolized by a puzzle piece. There’s a search for missing elements that will yield fix, solutions. I’m going to propose that the missing piece of the puzzle is something to know and understand, rather than something to fix.” What are people trying to fix? And do you still follow the sort of unending search for that “missing piece?”

GN: I don’t follow it much anymore. I used to. But I finally learned after many years that there is no, ‘the answer,’ because everybody is so different. One thing that could help one person doesn’t necessarily help another person. So, I don’t feel like I’m looking for that anymore. What would be nice, is more understanding. I know that there’s research being done. Do we want to know ahead of time that a child is going to be autistic so that they can be aborted? Is that what we’re going for? Personally, I don’t see that as being a very good idea, to decide which kind of human being is valuable. I don’t follow much anymore. But the fix to me is more understanding. And the fix to me is also more support for adults, because there are a ton of things for children. And the truth is that the programs that are out there for adults right now, aren’t so good. So, to me, that’s the fix.

 

AFM: One thing that I particularly loved in the book was the mix of the chapters and of your own personal poems. What prompted you to add that element into the book?

GN: I have not written a lot of poetry in my life. But for some reason when I was working on the book, they [the poems] just sort of came out. And I was like, ‘Well, do I want to include those? Is that weird?’ I didn’t really have enough to alternate poems and stories. But ended up being a really funny element to add into the book.

 

AFM: Tell me about the two books that you wrote before 'Space of Love.'

GN: So, the first one came out in 2006. That one is called, “It’s All About Attitude.” That one I actually wrote with a friend. She lives in Florida and her son has autism, and he’s actually the same age as my son. We both liked writing and we had both written articles. And we just one day said, ‘Let’s write a book.’ The essence of that [the book] was that your attitude really determines your experience and it was sort of supposed to serve as a guide of how to have a better attitude. It was made up of our personal stories and it was also the story of our friendship.

Then in 2010, I wrote another book and it was basically the same format. It was made up of short, personal stories and it was called, ‘Breathe.’ And that one was based on 52 oxygen-rich tools for loving and living well with autism. It was a response to people who understood from the first book that it was important to change your attitude, but who didn’t really know how exactly to do that.

 

AFM: You mentioned that your second book, “Breathe,” was sort of a response to critics of your first book. Was your newest book, “Space of Love,” a response to your first two books? Or was it an entity of its own?

GN: It is a thing of its own but in a way. I’ve learned about things that are so much more powerful and deeper than anything that I explored in my first two books, so it was more about sharing that. I didn’t think that I was going to write any more books. But I had seen some things in my life coach training—personally, and in working with other people—that really helped me to understand some big things. I just thought, ‘If somebody had told me this in the very beginning, it would have made such a difference for me.’

 

AFM: What is something that you would really like readers to take away from this book?

GN: All of the stories in this book are about autism. But the power of thought and wisdom is sort of like the thread that’s in there really strongly, and that I wanted people to see that this goes beyond autism. So, one thing is that when people start to understand, just even a tiny bit, of where there experience really comes from, it can change their world. People often think that their experience comes from outside. What I’m saying in this book, is that that’s not actually how human beings work. And this isn’t the world according to me, this comes from elsewhere. There’s something that happens in between these experiences, and that’s thought. Thought is what makes our experience and creates our feelings. It’s really difficult, if not next-to-impossible to control your thoughts. So, if we don’t take our thoughts too seriously or get hung up on them, we can let them flow. Thought is always in motion because it’s an energy. If people could just a glimpse of the fact that their experience comes from inside out, rather than outside in, then they’re not a victim anymore.

The other thing that I’d really like people to take away from this book is wisdom. We, as humans, are kind of plugged into a source. It’s a source that powers our wisdom and our intuition. It’s very powerful and it’s very underused. We instinctually panic when we think we don’t know something. But we have wisdom on our side. It’s always there, we just don’t always hear it or notice it because our heads are full of so many other thoughts. If people can begin to see that they have access to that, it will transform their lives.

For more information on Nobel and her new book, visit her official website.